The Victoria & Albert Museum (also known as the V&A) was established in 1852 as the country’s leading museum of art and design.

It gathered together all of the works inside the old School of Design and Museum of Manufactures, and transferred them to big Brompton Boilers building.

By the turn of the century its eclectic collection had grown so large and cumbersome that a better building was commissioned by Queen Victoria in South Kensington.

Medieval Treasury

One of the many highlights in the Medieval Treasury is the Becket Casket. This was created by the Limoges Enamellers in 1180 and depicts the death of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. You can even see a piece of blood-stained cloth – supposedly worn by Becket himself.

Cast Room and Trajan’s Column

The famous Cast Room contains plaster and concrete reproductions of many of the world’s best known statues and monuments.

Highlights include the Trajan’s Column from Rome, the Portico de la Gloria from Santiago de Compostela, Michelangelo’s David, and the beautiful Three Graces by Antonio Canova.

V&A’s art collection

The pride of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s art collection are the Raphael Cartoons. These were commissioned by Pope Leo X in 1515 as preparatory studies for the tapestries inside the Sistine Chapel. They were then purchased by the future Charles I in 1623.

The V&A also has a fine collection of British art that rivals the artworks in Tate Britain. They have a gallery full of Gainsboroughs, Constables and J W Turners, plus works by Landseer, Etty and Reynolds.

The Nehru Gallery of Indian Art contains everything from fine Asian paintings and white jade cups, to 17th-century thumb rings from Shah Jehan (the builder of the Taj Mahal). You can also see the intriguing Tipoo Tiger. This life-size sculpture of a tiger eating a man comes complete with a hidden music box which plays the gruesome growls and screams of the victim.

Another highlight is a nine-foot porcelain model of a Chinese pagoda – one of only ten such models to have survived to the present day.

Dress Collection

The Dress Collection traces the history of fashion from our distant forbears, to modern-day flares. You can see everything from Elizabethan ball-gowns and Victorian skirts, to flower-power hippy gear straight from the 1960s. Clothes from the catwalks of Paris and Milan are shown side-by-side with British royal robes from the 18th-century.

Awful 0%

Poor 0%

Okay 0%

Good 25%

Great 75%

SarahCroft – “The cast room is fantastic, and worth a visit on its own. It is full of life-size replicas of famous statues and buildings. The ones that I especially remember are the gigantic trajan's column, which has a spiral pattern of carvings all around it, and an incredible replica of the front of an italian church, whose name I can't remember. It is impossible to believe that it is not the real thing, as it is perfectly coloured to match how it really looks in rea… more”